


Of all the people in the world, I'm so glad I met you

by Helpneedmorefanfics



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Found family bitches!!!!, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:56:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27448234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Helpneedmorefanfics/pseuds/Helpneedmorefanfics
Summary: "I hate you," Zuko grumbles as he tries to start the fire like he'd seen one of the non-benders on his ship did once.Suki guffaws and Sokka laughs as they haul the deer they'd hunted down to where he's sitting. "You love us," Sokka teases, and Zuko hopes they never find out how much of that is true.
Relationships: Sokka/Suki (Avatar), Sokka/Suki/Zuko (Avatar), Sokka/Zuko (Avatar), Suki/Zuko (Avatar), The Gaang (Avatar) & Other(s)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 55





	Of all the people in the world, I'm so glad I met you

**Author's Note:**

> This is pure self indulgence. Pure. 
> 
> Also I like the sibling relationships in atla but??? The older siblings could be more protective I feel.

"Run!" Sokka screams, pushing at Zuko's shoulder and picking up Aang and slinging him over his shoulder. Zuko can't move, still staring at his palms, unable to breathe. 

But two swords clash right above his face and snap him out of it, and he kicks the attacker in front of him in the stomach, with all the force he can muster. Sokka is behind him and holding one of the swords, the one stopping his skull being cleaved in half, and he takes advantage of the sudden weakness of the assassin and disarms them. 

Zuko grabs the sword as it falls and parries another guard's sword as it flies towards him. He's working on a third when a weight crashes into him, and it's only the realization that the person is waist-height that stops him from swinging down. It's Toph, shaking and babbling and- and  _ crying _ , and Zuko throws one of his hidden knives at a tapestry banner hanging over the end of the hallway, falling over the heads of the incoming assassins, before bending down and whispering, "Toph, it's me, it's Zuko, I'm picking you up." The girl nods fiercely, and buries her face in his robes as he does, running in the direction Sokka is screaming, "Move, move, move!" with Aang practically catatonic on his shoulder. 

A quick glance shows Suki pulling along Katara and Iroh, and they all set off around the corner. The building is steadily coming down under the destruction wreaked by the attackers, and Zuko hears screaming as they sprint away. At a corner, a door opens and Ty Lee and Mai join them as they run, along with a bunch of children- they must have been having their weekly class when the warning horn went off- and everyone instinctively forms a circle around them. 

Then there's suddenly someone gripping his robe and he tightens his grip on Toph before realizing it's Suki. "Get to the front and lead them out," She pants out, and he nods, head suddenly clear, worry packed away for later. 

"The other benders," He says desperately, "The servants-" Suki stops running and nods determinedly, and Zuko's heart skips a beat as he realizes that she's going to-  _ again- _

"There's a passage on the second floor, behind the third tapestry, meant for royals," He tells her, fiddling with his signia ring. Toph yells in his ear to watch out and he ducks as Suki punches out someone from behind him. Suki takes his ring with a nod and Toph yells out, "Be safe!" Which is good, because his own words are caught in his throat as he turns away. 

He puts on a burst of speed to catch up and reaches the front, tugging on Ty Lee's sleeve and jerking his head to the gardens. They turn, and the whole group follows. 

"Thank the Earth for your low-lying houses," A Kyoshi warrior mutters as they leap over the balcony rail and onto the open hill that towers over the rest of the city. 

"What do we do?" Zuko pants, suddenly blank. He turns to Sokka, who looks taken aback before his face contorts into a frown, thinking. 

"Jiali, take everyone you can from here, and hide in the city," He tells the warrior, who nods and takes off with the children down the hill. Some of the older servants who'd joined them went as well. 

Aang coughs suddenly and Sokka shifts him into his arms, but the Avatar still hasn't regained consciousness. Sokka's face twists in worry and panic, and Zuko pitches in. 

"We should get on Appa and leave while we can," He wheezes out, placing Toph on the ground for a while. 

Iroh makes a noise, "But the palace-"

"Is already lost," Sokka cuts in, "They have the strength of numbers and the benders can't-" He cuts himself off, but there's a sharp inhale from everyone. 

And then the roof of the palace explodes. 

Toph jumps into his arms and they all take off in the same direction unprompted, to where Appa is struggling against his tether on a flat patch of land, bellowing. 

He pushes up Toph, then Aang, then catches Katara as she wobbles and falls off suddenly, unconscious, and pushes her up too. Ty Lee and Mai are already up, and so is Iroh, and Zuko is about to pull himself up, black encroaching on his own vision, before he remembers something and gasps.

"'Zula," He blurts out, grabbing Sokka's arm and, "Azula, she's still in the palace, she's chained in her cell, she's going to be a sitting turtleduck, I can't leave her-" Black eyes widen and turn to the palace, before Sokka pushes him up and says, "If I'm not back in fifteen minutes, leave without me."

"No- Sokka!" He yells out after him, but Sokka is gone, leaving him on the bison. 

He turns to the others- Iroh is being tied to one of the back horns of the saddle, Aang and Toph and Katara all unconscious on the floor. With waning strength, trying not to think about Sokka and Suki in a building full of assassins, he pushes the kids- Agni Ma, they were still  _ teenagers-  _ to the saddlehorns, and passes rope to Ty Lee to tie them down- they can't afford anyone falling off. 

He forces himself to focus- what do they need? "Supplies," He mutters, "Mai, we need supplies!" The girl looks up from where she's fastening the reigns and nods, getting up and sprinting off to the city. Zuko watches her go, heart in his throat at a third person he cared about running off into danger at his heed. But he couldn't focus on that right now, right now they needed- "A map. Katara. Katara!" 

Zuko falls down next to her, shaking her by the shoulders. Her eyes open, but unfocused, dazed. He thrusts the saddle map in front of her, speaking loudly, "What places can we land at?"

He hates doing this to her when she must be feeling worse than he is, but she's the only one who'd know all the places that wouldn't be possible to infiltrate, and safe to land. Katara breathes in and then shakily dips her fingers in the inkpot he offers her and crosses out a few places on the map before fainting again. 

Zuko mutters a thanks and rights her head up the best he can, heart aching, and attaches the map to the front of the saddle again. 

His head is pounding and his legs give out suddenly, leaving him half dazed on the saddle floor. Ty Lee comes into his vision, saying something he doesn't hear, and another explosion rocks the hill. 

Sokka. Suki. He wants to go to them so bad, but his body won't cooperate and he's losing the fight with the darkness and he needs to go to them- he  _ has to _ -

And then there's suddenly a body thumping on top of his, and Azula is clutching at his robes and babbling, "Zuzu, Zuzu, I can't feel it, I can't feel my fire, my fire's gone-" And Zuko; he's still her brother, and he brings his hands up tight around her shoulders and hugs her close and rushes out, "I know, I know, we all have, no one can bend, it's okay." And then Sokka is clambering on board and grabbing his boomerang as it comes back through the air and Suki screams, "Yip, yip!"

Ty Lee shouts out, "Mai is waiting at the edge of the city with supplies!" and Azula hugs him tight as Appa takes to the air with a roar and Zuko blacks out. 

* * *

When he wakes up, it's to Sokka trying to dislodge him from his death grip on his sister. "It's just me, just me," The other boy murmurs, and Zuko loosens his hold. 

He moves, carefully setting Azula to the side, in case she's feeling half the body ache he is, and accepts the flask of water offered. 

"Thanks," He rasps, after gulping down the entire thing, handing the empty flask back. It's almost night now, and they're flying above the clouds. It's quiet. 

"No problem," Sokka whispers and Zuko looks around to see who's awake. Only two- Suki, counting the supplies Mai had brought, and Ty Lee, apparently flying Appa. 

"What did I miss?" 

"Not much," Sokka says, rubbing his eyes. He looks so tired. "We've been in the sky ever since we took off, picked up Mai, and now we're aiming for the Quilan mountains to hide out for a while."

Zuko hums, taking stock of his own body as Sokka talks. He's aching, and cold, and hungry, but he's not sleepy and can get up and walk over to the saddle at least.

"Ty," He puts a hand on her shoulder, and smiles when she covers it with her own, "Come on, go rest. I'll take over." 

She opens her mouth to argue but Sokka calls out quietly, amusement in his tone, "He's older than you. You have to listen." 

Zuko chuckles at the face Ty Lee pulls at that, but she really must be exhausted because she gets up without another word and walks to the back. 

She makes to go to Mai, but pauses when she catches sight of Azula, shivering on the floor. Her eyes flit between them, hesitant like Zuko's never seen her. But then Suki comes over and makes the decision for her, picking up Azula easily and propping her against Mai's snoring form in the back. 

Ty Lee grins at her, eyes sparkling with tears, and grabs a blanket to spread over them all as she settles in next to Azula, the three of them dozing off in a tight knot. 

Zuko smiles, then turns around to the front, gently guiding Appa back on course from where he was drifting out. 

After some time Sokka drops down next to him and Suki does too, warm bodies against the cold wind. He shivers and accepts the offered jerky, three of them munching down in the quiet. 

"Thank you," He whispers after they're done. "For saving everyone."

They snort at the same time. "Our friends too," Sokka yawns, and wraps an arm around Zuko's shoulders. Zuko is too tired to be flustered about it, instead giving priority to, "I can't bend. No one can."

Suki wraps a warm arm around his waist and grabs onto Sokka's hand dangling near her face. "We'll figure it out." She mutters, and Zuko almost let's her bury her cold nose in his neck and let Sokka burrow into his side and nap until he remembers Suki taking a bad hit to the shoulder and catches a glimpse of red staining Sokka's shirt in the moonlight. 

"You're injured!" He whisper-shouts in horror and the two of them wince. He growls in irritation and pulls himself back up to the saddle, grumbling about, "Stupid, self-sacrificing idiots who can't take care of themselves." 

He hears giggles as he digs around for medical supplies and comes up with a handful (Bless Mai) and angrily scuttles back down to Appa's head. 

The two of them are kissing when he returns, and while normally he'd leave them alone and retreat with a longing ache in his chest, he's too angry with them to do anything other than slide between them and pull them apart, both of them laughing as he does. 

Sokka is bleeding and takes priority and he ignores the laughter overhead as he checks him for injuries. Bruises, a lot of them, and a cut on the side of his head, a bruised rib or two and-

Zuko and Suki both gasp as he pushes aside water tribe fur to reveal a half cauterized stab wound. Sokka winces, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly as Suki starts berating him rapid-fire. Zuko can't hear her very well over the thundering of his blood in his ears, and leans forward to slather the wound in cream and wrap it up, trying not to visibly tremble. 

Sokka is saying, "I cauterized it with a torch on the wall, so I haven't been bleeding out this entire time, don't worry."

"Don't worry?" Zuko half-yells. "What do you  _ mean don't- _ " He cuts himself off, breathing heavily. He starts up again slowly, mortified to be having to push back tears, "We worry, Sokka. You could have  _ died. _ "

The water tribe boy slumps and sighs, "I know. I'm here, though, so I can't regret anything."

"We know," Suki sighs, and Zuko turns to look at her in the moonlight, ethereally pretty. Two pairs of hands reach out and start divesting her of her armour, keeping a careful grip on it to make sure it doesn't fall below. She sits silently, letting the two of them do it and Zuko feels like he's going to combust at the trust. She pulls down her shirt off her shoulder and points and Sokka spreads the salve obligingly, while Zuko goes back again to dump the armor in the saddle. He glances at the sleeping passengers once more, before delegating all worry to the morning and sliding back down to his friends. He sits on Suki's other side and gives her hands the best massage he can, while Sokka continues to spread the salve. 

"Put it on yourself too," Zuko reminds him and Suki does it for him, the three of them sitting there in silence. After they're done, they make Appa dip down to a city and throw the used jars and buy more, and set off as fast as they can. 

Sokka sighs and suddenly lies down, head in Zuko's lap, with his butt on Suki's, the last of his strength gone. Suki chuckles and slaps Sokka fondly on his arm and Zuko huffs too. 

"I'm glad you came back," He whispers to her, and she hums, already tucking her head into Zuko's shoulder (why is her nose so  _ cold _ ) and falling asleep herself. 

Something inside him settles at her soft snores and Sokka's quiet breaths and he relishes in their warmth against the breeze, relishes in  _ them _ . 

They all got out. They might- they might not be able to  _ bend _ , but Zuko looks up at the stars, so many of them, bright like they aren't in the capital. He hasn't seen them in so long, but he looks at them and thinks,  _ we'll figure it out. _

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Also I thought that Agni by itself is kinda weird to swear by, because it just means 'fire' whereas Agni Ma makes it more credible, cause then you'll be talking about the mother of fire instead. It sounds much better imo.


End file.
